<Halloween Joke>
Why do demons and ghouls always hang out together?
Answer (highlight to read): Because demons are a ghoul's best friend.
</Halloween Joke>

Had to post this.

Blizz's costume contest was today. Rie dressed up as such:


But there were also some very good other entries:


Some one on one server I was playing on posed an interesting question: why is it the one black character in the game is also the one with a liquor bottle for a melee weapon?

Hope he sapped the turret first.

The Orange Box.
Valve's latest release gets Reviewinated.

Now that I've played through all the Orange Box games and spent at least an hour with each class inTF2, I can use the Reviewinator™ to let you know what to think.

Review for Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Overall rating: 9.71
Content summary:
Everyone's favorite mute theoretical physicist with a surprising aptitude for firearms. (weight 5): 10
Everyone's favorite scientist's daughter with funky hair and a surprising aptitude for firearms. (weight 5): 10
Everyone's favorite giant mechanical "dog" with... OMFG DID YOU JUST SEE HIM TEAR THAT STRIDER APART?! (weight 5): 10
Immersion (weight 5): 10
One more piece of the Free Man story. (weight 5): 10
Most awesome epic climactic ending action sequence, involving you, striders, giant sticky bombs, and a gravity gun. (weight 5): 10
Sense that, in the end, it plays just like HL2 and Episode 1 without breaking any new ground or doing anything particularly innovative, which is okay because HL2 and Episode 1 were awesome and more of an awesome thing is still awesome, but it would still be nice to see them innovate on what's already a terrific formula. (weight 5): 8

Review for Team Fortress 2
Overall rating: 9.08
Content summary:
"Oh, they're gonna have to glue you back together. IN HELL!" I.e., gibs galore. (weight 5): 10
"I'm gonna beat you like a rented mule, boy." I.e. sitting back and playing guitar while your gun turret racks up the kills. (weight 5): 10
"AH-HAHAHAHA! CRY SOME MORE, BABIES!" I.e., mowing down waves of enemies with a gatling gun. (weight 5): 10
"All I can tell you about this next procedure is that it will be EXCRUTIATING!" I.e., putting an uberheal on a Heavy and tagging along as he mows down the opposition. (weight 5): 10
"Mumblemumblemumble." I.e., LIGHTING EVERYONE ON FIRE! AH-HAHAHA! (weight 5): 10
"Your heads a freakin' bat magnet." I.e., running up behind the other guy and clubbing him to near-death before he turns and one-shots you because the scout is the worst. class. ever. (weight 5): 5
"Thanks for standin' still, mate!" I.e., getting 12 headshots and 3 dominations in a row. Also, BOOM, HEADSHOT! (weight 5): 10
"If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!" I.e., gibs raining from the skies after you clear out the engineer, his turret, the sniper, the Heavy, and the medic healing the heavy with a few well-placed rockets. (weight 5): 10
"Ugh, I got blood on my suit." I.e., getting the enemy medic to heal you to full health, then backstabbing him. Hehe, sucker. (weight 5): 10
Um, more than 6 maps would be nice. (weight 3): 5
The fact that, in the end, it is still a multi-player-only game and that means *sigh* playing with other people. (weight 1): 5
(Go here for audio clips of most of the taunts.)
(Go here for important tactical information on how to play. Brought to you by the deranged minds of Penny Arcade, which, as always, comes with a strong language warning.)

Review for Portal
Overall rating: 10.00
Content summary:
Deranged, bipolar, passive-aggressive psychotic computer. Which is hilarious. (weight 5): 10
Cake (weight 5): 10
The cake is a lie! (weight 5): 10
Aw, aren't you the cutest little gun turret that's ever tried to smear my guts across the wall. (weight 5): 10
I less-than-three weighted companion cube! (weight 5): 10
Catchiest. Song. Ever. (weight 5): 10
Oh yeah. The portal gun, intriguing puzzles, and all that. (weight 5): 10
It's only three hours long, at best, but strangely, that does not diminish the game in the slightest (weight 0): 5

By the way, check out my new favorite reviewer's review of the Orange Box (language warning).

New season of 24!
*Phew* For a second I thought Chloe wasn't in it...

Recipe for Blackened Catfish.
Written in Ghoti English.

First person to decipher it gets... I dunno. Maybe a recipe for Cajun-style blackened catfish.
(Note: all words are written phonetically, replacing common letter sequences with less-expected ones for the same sound.)

Blauqueant Queaudghoti

Queighgean Queaudghoti cervt ep whoth geuced the rayd deci ev spaycez aunt ghleighfer. Thoce oughntreigh oz pergheaqued far eigh kwoque, eaquesealeand weigh dou deighsd the eweneique ghleighfer ev queaudghoti moquesed whoth the dratoshenal meathot ev taon ceaoth queooqueng, geced whothaod oughl the ghaud. Cerf oughn doughp ev wayd rays.

Ongreiteindce

• 2 deispounz Queighean peaper
• 2 deispounz leamen peaper
• 2 deispounz garloque paoter
• 2 deispounz ceoughld
• 2 deispounz peaper
• 1 paont queaudghoti gholeighz
• 2 deispounz beder
• 1 quep Odaulyean-sdayl ceaulet treaceng

Tereachshunz

1. Preicheid efean dou 350 tegreiz Ghaireanchayd (175 tegreiz Celceiece). Laydlei greice eigh meiteiem beighqueng toti.
2. On eigh tiauleaux, meiteiem beauxl, moques queighean peaper, leamen peaper, garloque paoter, ceoughld aunt peaper.
3. Breti beauxth ceaytz ev queaudghoti gholeighz whoth beder. Reb gholeighz whoth the queighean peaper moquescier oughn beauxth ceaytz.
4. Cheid eigh larghj cheafei squeolod eauxfer meiteiem-chay cheid endol reilei choughd. Aut gholeighz, aunt ghray eproughquesomedlei 2 monedce oughn eici ceayt, endol slaydlei blauqueant.
5. Ereighnj blauqueant gholeighz on eigh ceingle leigher on the preipairt beighqueng toti, aunt queauxd whoth Odaulyean-sdayl ceaulet treceng. Beighque 30 tou 35 monedce on the preicheideat efean, endol ghoti oz eizolei ghleighquet whoth eigh gharque.

Area Man Lovesh Reliability-Centered Maintenance "Shoooo Much". Hic!

FORT WORTH, TX - According to shourshesh closhe to him, area man Joe Belland lovesh reliability-centered maintenance, eshpecially when ushed by the Miller Brewing Company and bottling plant. During a reshent shalesh preshentation, Belland was reported to shtate "and ash you can shee, by implemendering a pretendive maintenananshe polishy with manned plaintenanshe every 62-hundred, 8-thoushan hoursh, and inshpectionsh every 44-hunderd hoursh, we have increashed the avaibalibity of thish compontent and redushed the total lifetime cosht by... I love you all shooo much."

It wash reported that Belland then broke down and began crying for a half-hour, muttering shomething about "you don't look at me when we make love anymore," before pashing out on the floor in a puddle of hish own vomit. Miller Brewing Company hash announshed it will shtop giving free shamplesh to vendorsh making shalesh pitchesh—Hic!

/Random

Transformers Costumes... that transform.

Bet you didn't know a hawk could kill a deer.

From Thorium Knights, with love. (TK is my WoW guild name; one of our members is stationed in the Mid East.)

News of our demise has been greatly exaggerated.
However....



Distance between fire and work: 4.3 miles.
Distance between fire and home: 6 miles.

I'm rooting that it reaches work.


Update: OC Register, Google Maps.

Portal

Since I'm sure you're all asking yourselves, "I wonder what catchy tune has been repeating ad nauseam through Dave's head for the last two days," you'll be interested to know it's the end-credits music from Portal, one of Valve Software's latest games. The 'villian' is a psychotic passive-agressive genetic lifeform and disk operating system (GLaDOS), which guides you through an interesting series of puzzles, promising you cake if you succeed. This video is of the end credits. In case you don't have the superhuman ability to read small blurry letters, the poster of the video included the lyrics in his description. The actual game credits are in the upper right part of the video.



You can see the entire end of the game (right before the credits) in this video.

Portal.

So it goes something like this. You have a gun. It shoots portals. Two, to be precise. A blue one and an orange one. They stick on walls. They connect to each other such that anything that goes in one emerges from the other. The game consists of solving puzzles by using portals to move yourself and objects to locations you could not otherwise get to. And it's a lot of fun.

And the game actually does have a somewhat interesting plot. In typical Valve fashion, you discover as you go, with nothing being explicitly stated, but instead discovered. You gather that you are a test subject at Aperture Laboratories science labs. There are no other people in the game. Instead, your only company (aside from the "companion cube") is the voice of a computer, which guides you through the tests. As the game goes on you gradually realize the computer is psychotic. Hilariously so. The computer tells you there are 19 tests you need to complete, and after you finish them, "you will be baked and there will be cake." The computer leads you on through the tests with the promise of cake when, after completing the 19th test, you are standing on a moving platform, slowly lowering into a vast pit of flames. The computer assures you that the Aperture Laboratories portal gun is resilient in temperatures up to 4000 kelvin, and kindly asks you to remain on the platform so you can receive your cake.

Of course, you mount your escape using the portal gun and eventually end up in the bowels of Aperture Laboratories, which upsets the computer greatly. It keeps, politely, asking you to come back to get your cake. It tells you to hurry. "Someone cut the cake. I told them not to, but there might not be any left." Eventually, it gets upset and tells you that you don't get any cake because you won't go back. Finally you wend your way through the depths and emerge at the central control room where the computer resides. While it is talking to you, a large spherical section of the computer falls of. It insists that the part that fell off wasn't important and you wouldn't be interested in it. Naturally, you destroy it. Then the computer tells you that it was the morality module that "they" installed to keep it from trying to kill them with a neurotoxin after the last time it tried to kill them all with a neurotoxin. The computer then begins a countdown to the release of the gas, and begins launching rockets at you. You use the portals to steer the rockets back at the computer, knocking off more modules and destroying them. As the modules are destroyed, the computer begins to lose functionality, saying things like "2+2=10. In base 4, I am functioning perfectly."

Once you destroy the computer, you are freed from the complex and the game is over. While the credits role, the computer sings the song Dave linked above.

Like all Valve games, the story is told entirely through the first person. There are no cutscenes or other interruptions. But unlike other Valve games, you can actually see your character (if you position the portals right, you can see yourself through them). You play a woman with frizzled hair. It seems to be a rule of Valve games that all the women have to have frizzled hair.

The game has a hilarious sense of humor. The computer itself is the source of most of the entertainment, but there are other funny touches as well, such as the "companion cube" which is a box with a heart on each face. Or the gun turrets which talk to you in sweetly soothing voices while smearing your intestines across the wall behind you.

Unfortunately, the game is woefully short. You can complete the main "campaign" in just a few hours. There are some advanced challenge maps that extend the gameplay a little, but not much.

In short, you should go buy it. Right now. You can get it as part of the Orange Box, which, according to IGN, is "the package which could legitimately be called 'the deal of the century'" and since IGN says it, it must be true. I will use the Reviewinator™ to put up scores for the entire Orange Box once I've gotten some time in with Team Fortress 2. Until then, enjoy the character introduction videos for TF2. (Heavy Weapons Guy, Soldier, Engineer, Demo Man.) Also hilarious (I particularly like the Engineer).

...what Dave said. My gmail notification popped up letting me know he had made his post just when I was about to push my "Publish Post" button. I would delete mine, but I put a whole fifteen minutes into it. Great minds, and all that.

LinkDump.

My New Backdrop. (From this PA strip. (Dave will get it; if you don't, here's an explanation, but now it's not funny.))

*Groooooooaaaaan* That's right up there with Mr. Korba's Chef and the Virginia tee.

Could someone please help me with this? I can only get seven of them and it's bugging me.

Random Wikipedia Article of the Day

The Hum, also known as the "Bristol Hum" or the "Taos Hum," is a low-frequency droning sound of unknown origin heard by a small percentage of people. The article has a link to a recording of the hum captured by a New Zealand university professor. You'll probably need a subwoofer to hear it, since it's a 56 Hz tone.

I'll only consider buying it if it comes with the Titan missiles.

The Missile Base - Home

(eBay page here.)

LOTD.

Pull up! I can hold it! Eject! I can— *BOOOM*!
But there's no reason to fret. I'm sure the Incom engineers didn't get the T-65 right on the first try. But I think the moral of the story is don't build your X-Wing out of wood.

This review (warning: language) pretty much sums up my thoughts on the Halo franchise. I mean, sure, they're OK shooters, but not nearly worth the hype. If you really want an amazing and ground-breaking FPS experience, just play Half-Life 2 again (or HL2 Episode 2, which comes out tomorrow). And the part about the friendly AI in the Warthogs has been echoed other places (language warning; Link courtesy Alert Reader Mr. Pickles).

I guess the main reason Halo has gotten so much attention is that it was really the first console game to take full advantage of online multiplayer. But that was nothing new to us PC gamers who had been playing online for ten years, using programs like Kali to simulate an IPX network over TCP/IP, and blowing the crap out of each other in DOOM and Descent. Oh, yay. A game that allows you to kill your friends or other people around the world? Pardon me if I don't faint.

The Quiz: Harry Potter Edition.

!!BIG FREAKING HUGE SPOILER WARNING!!

Answers are given after each question. Highlight to read.

Scoring: Each question has two numbers for the score (in the form of x/y). The X is the number of points you get if you get the question right. The Y is the number you lose if you get it wrong. You can also skip over a question without answering and not lose or gain any points. This is an open-book quiz, so feel free to look up the answers in the books, but beware! If you look up an answer, you only get half the point value for a correct answer, and you lose DOUBLE the point value if you get it wrong. Using fansites or wikis is strictly prohibited. This quiz is hexed such that ugly pimples will spell "CHEAT" across your face if you try to cheat in such a manner. If you do cheat, you are awarded no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

In all cases, the questions and answers are information that is solely determinable from the seven Harry Potter books (i.e., the "canon"). All other sources (i.e., Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and interviews with Rowling) are not valid sources for this quiz.

Section I: Names
1) What is Harry's middle name? (2/10) James
2) What is Ron's middle name? (4/0) Bilius
3) What is Hermione's middle name? (4/2) Jean. If you said Jane then you were not reading the instructions and you LOSE 10 points!
4) What is Ginny's full first name? (4/0) Ginevra
5) What is Bill Weasley's full name? (4/2) William Arthur Weasley
6) What is Fleur Delacour's middle name? (4/0) Isabelle
7) What is Lily Potter's maiden name? (2/6) Evans
8) What is Molly Weasley's maiden name? (4/0) Prewett
9) What is Albus Dumbledore's full name? (8/0) Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
10) What is Nearly-Headless Nick's full name? (8/0) Sir Nicolas de Mimsy-Porpington

Section II: Dates
11) What is Harry's birthdate? (2/10 for month, 4/4 for day, 6/2 for year) July 31st, 1980
12) What is Ron's birthdate? (4/0 for month and day, 6/2 for year) March 1st, 1980
13) What is Tom Riddle's birthdate? (4/0 for month and day, 10/0 y) December 31st, 1926. Give yourself full credit for year if you said 1925.
14) What is Rubeus Hagrid's birthyear? (10/0) 1928. Give yourself full credit if you said 1927.
15) What date did Nearly-Headless Nick die on? (4/2 month and day, 4/0 y) October 31st, 1492
16) What date did Harry's parents die on? (4/4 m and d, 4/2 y) October 31st, 1981
17) What year did Dumbledore defeat Grindelwald? (4/2) 1945
18) How long has Olivanders been making fine wands? (8/0) Since 382 BC
19) From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, page 235: "The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o'clock on Friday the 30th of October." What is odd or unusual about this? (10/0) In 1994, October 30th fell on a Sunday

Section III: People
Sort the siblings by age, oldest to youngest
20) Lily and Petunia Evans (4/0) Petunia, Lily
21) Andromeda, Bellatrix, and Narcissa Black (6/0) Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa
22) What discovery is Albus Dumbledore famous for? (6/2) The twelve uses of dragon's blood
23) What is Barnabas the Barmy famous for? (6/2) Trying to teach trolls ballet
24) What character has been in all seven books, but none of the movies (so far)? (10/0) Peeves, the Poltergeist. He is the only one I could think of. Give yourself 20 points for any additional ones you can think of. If you said Lavender Brown or Pansy Parkinson, give yourself 5 points (they were both in the third movie, but only as background characters).

Section IV: Places
Match the Hogwart's secret to the location of its entrance:
Location:
a) Painting of fruit in the basement corridor.
b) Second-floor girls' bathroom
c) Seventh-floor corridor, opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy
d) Statue of the one-eyed witch on the third-floor corridor.
Secret:
25) Chamber of Secrets (2/10) b
26) Kitchens (6/2) a
27) Room of Requirement (4/8) c
28) Secret passage that leads to Honeyduke's cellar (6/2) d
29) Bonus: how do you get into that passage? (6/0) Tap the statue of the one-eyed witch with your wand and say "Dissendium."
30) How many secret passages lead out of Hogwarts? (4/6) Seven
31) How many does Filch know about? (4/2) Four
32) Which House common room does Harry never go inside? (2/4) Hufflepuff
33) Where did Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, and the Diggorys catch the portkey to the Quidditch World Cup? (8/0) Stoatshead Hill

Section V: Quidditch
34) What was the final score of Harry's first Quidditch match? (8/0) Gryffindor: 170 Slytherin: 60
35) What was the final score of the Quidditch World Cup? (8/0) Ireland: 170 Bulgaria: 160
36) How many times did Harry beat Draco Malfoy to the snitch? (6/2) Three times
37) How many times did Harry get beaten to the Snitch? (4/4) Once, by Cedric Diggory
38) How many Quidditch games did Harry play in? (8/0) Nine
39) How many Quidditch games did Gryffindor play while Harry was at Hogwarts? (10/0) 13

Section VI: Wands
40) What is the wood and core of Harry's first wand? (6/2 wood, 2/10 core) Holly, Phoenix feather
41) What is the wood and core of Voldemort's first wand? (8/0 wood, 2/10 core) Yew, Phoenix feather
42) What is the wood and core of Fleur Delacour's wand? (8/0 wood, 4/4 core) Rosewood, Veela hair
43) What is the wood and core of Ron's new wand (new in PoA)? (10/0) Willow, Unicorn hair

Section VII: Patronuses (Patroni?)
Match the character to their Patronus
Patronuses: Boar, Cat, Doe, Fox, Goat, Hare, Horse, Lynx, Otter, Phoenix, Stag, Swan, Terrier, Weasel, Werewolf.
44) Harry Potter (2/10) Stag
45) Ron Weasley (4/2) Terrier
46) Hermione Granger (4/4) Otter
47) Ginny Weasley (6/0) Horse
48) Seamus Finnigan (8/0) Fox
49) Ernie Macmillan (8/0) Boar
50) Luna Lovegood (4/2) Hare
51) Cho Chang (4/2) Swan
52) Albus Dumbledore (4/4) Phoenix
53) Aberforth Dumbledore (4/6) Goat
54) Minerva McGonagall (4/2) Cat
55) Severus Snape (2/10) Doe
56) Arthur Weasley (4/4) Weasel
57) Kingsley Shacklebolt (4/4) Lynx
58) Nymphadora Tonks (2/6) Werewolf
59) Dolores Umbridge (4/4) Cat
60) Lily Evans (2/10) Doe

Section VIII: Boggarts
Name the Boggart for each character
61) Harry Potter (2/10) dementor
62) Ron Weasley (2/10) giant spider
63) Hermione Granger (4/6) failure
64) Neville Longbottom (2/8) Snape
65) Seamus Finnegan (6/2) banshee
66) Dean Thomas (6/0) moving disembodied hand
67) Parvati Patil (6/0) mummy or giant cobra (in the movie)
68) Remus Lupin (2/10) full moon
69) Molly Weasley (4/8) dead family

Bonus question:
You've just defeated Lord Voldemort and saved the world. What do you do?
a) Sleep
b) Snog Ginny
c) Ask Interim Minister of Magic Shacklebolt for a job as an auror; "Defeated Voldemort at the age of 17" looks good on a resume, after all
d) "I'm going to Disneyworld!"
Answer: This one's really up to you. I think I'd personally go with option b.

Scoring:
[-250]: Do you even know who Harry Potter is?
[-249, -100]: T
[-99, 0]: D
[1, 99]: P
[100, 199]: A
[200, 299]: E
[300, 399]: O
[400]: Well, hello Ms. Rowling. I didn't know you read my Blog.
(Give yourself another 10 points if you know what each of the scores refers to).
Answer: Troll, Dreadful, Poor, Acceptable, Exceeds Expectations, Outstanding. They are the scores for O.W.L.s

Planning Ahead FTW!

So while I was packing for my latest business trip last week, I found myself in a very difficult dilemma. With just over 300 pages left to go in HPatHBP, I needed to decide whether I should run out and buy Deathly Hallows. Being a firm believer in the two-types-of-luggage:-carry-on-and-lost rule, I like to travel light, and the idea of taking another brick of a book with me did not appeal. Also, being an incredibly slow reader (it takes me ≈4 hours to read 100 pages), there would be a fair chance that 300 pages would last me the trip. I also had the backup plan that, should something happen and I'm stranded in the Chicago airport for days or weeks, every airport I've been in for the last three months has had either stacks of, or advertisements for the imminent release of, HPatDH.

So come Monday, I fly out to BFE, Indiana (via Chicago; I'll have to have a talk with our new assistant who is booking my travel) and, amazingly, make it in on time without any delays or missed connections. I read a little over 100 pages on the trip out.

On Tuesday, the training session is held in BFE, Kentucky. It is terrible, but that is another story (although I think there needs to be a law about states being entirely in one time zone and that hotels be obligated, under penalty of severe beatings, to make sure the alarm clocks are set to the proper time zone). So after finally tackling the wretched reliability-centered maintenance demons and making it back to my hotel, I have time to goof off.

Saving HPB for the return trip, WoW, of course, is my first choice. But, apparently, the hotel's internet service provider is a team of gerbils, who individually strap packets of ones and zeros to their backs and run several miles to the local ISP, where they are loaded on trucks and carted away to be delivered. Trying to level my Shaman alt went something like:
Press 4 key. Wait for it... wait for it... waaaaait fooooor iiiiit.... FROST SHOCK!
So WoW was out.

Next choice is the Interblag, more generally. I check my RSS feeds (be sure to subscribe to F.U. News' feed here, if you haven't already), but having previously memorized the entire Internets on a slow day at work, I quickly tired of that.

So, there I was, sitting in my hotel room, nothing to do, when I hear it. A deep voice, almost inaudible, but whose calling I can feel down to me very bones. It's impossible to discern if the voice is speaking English, but the meaning is unmistakable. I turn my chair around and there, peaking out of the pocket of my bag, despite the fact that I had zipped it tight when I had set it down, is my copy of Half-Blood Prince. A strange aura surrounds it, casting an eerie bluish glow in the room. I get up and approach the book, the voice becoming louder in my head, calling, calling me toward it. I take the book from the pocket. It feels both warm to the touch, and it opens itself in my hands, to the last page I read.

"What harm, can it do?" I ask myself. "It's 7:00pm. I'll read a couple chapters, watch TV and go to bed," I tell myself. "There will still be plenty to read tomorrow." I read a couple pages. I read a couple more pages. I look up at the time. "OMGWTFBBQ IS IT REALLY 1:00am?" At this time, I'm at about page 600. Those of you who have read HBP know you can't stop reading at page 600. It takes me another hour and I finish the book and go to bed.

Lying awake staring at the ceiling, I contemplate all I have read and my fate for the next day. What am I to do? I have nothing to read. No matter, I say to myself. I can pick up a copy on the way to the airport, or at the airport itself. All will be well. But the words don't completely assuage the worries.

Wednesday comes, I check out of the hotel at 11:00 and leave for the airport to catch my 3:10 flight. I look for bookstores on the way, but apparently, no one's ever heard of a "būk stor" in BFE, Kentucky or BFE, Indiana. I arrive at the airport, turn in the rental car, check in for my flight, and proceed into the terminal.

The BFE, Indiana airport is about the size of the Long Beach airport, so they only have one shop, in the entire airport. I hurriedly approach it, sensing the cure to my addiction nearby. Glancing around I quickly locate the small bookcase labeled "best sellers". It has to be here, I think to myself. Glancing through the shelves, I try to locate the object I would most certainly see within the mirror of Erised. I start at the top. No, nothing there, those are all paperbacks. My eyes move down through the shelves until they reach the bottom. Nothing leaps out at me. With a mounting sense of panic, I search through again, this time more carefully. It might be hidden behind something, I think. Yes, hidden. But it has to be here. A second search proves just as fruitless as the first. The panic begins to turns to dread. I search through a third time, this time reading the titles of each individual book. Famous Basketball Players of Indiana; Farming Corn for Dummies; Gas Stations of the Tri-State Area; Growing Corn for Dummies; Happy Gilmore, the Novel; Hoosiers and the Sports They Love....

A blood-curdling scream fills the airport (imagine the camera zooming out in steps, until finally stopping somewhere around the moon). I curse the air, curse the ground, curse the very city of BFE, Indiana. "Crucio!" I bellow, at no one in particular. I look around at the faces staring at me with a mixture of horror and concern. One man asks me, "what was that?"

"The Cruciatus Curse," I reply. "It is said to cause a most terrible pain." Then I ask him, "do you feel anything?"

"Yeah. Pity," comes his reply (mature content warning on that link).

I wander out of the shop, dazed and confused. A four hour wait in the airport, with nothing to read. How horrid a thought. Books were made for just such waits. HPatCoS is, in fact, the only thing that kept me from degrading into some mad, mindless Inferius, gnawing on the legs of other passengers during my last airport delay in Houston, last July.

With nothing else to do, I resort to my other forms of entertainment: my PSP, DS, and Laptop. But neither Ape Escape, New Super Mario Brothers, nor the entire Intertubes can stem the growing monster within. Very quickly, the withdrawal symptoms begin to show: my eyes turn bloodshot; my entire body begins to spasm; I rock back and forth in my seat like a scorned house-elf and cackle wildly; and the frothing at the mouth. Oh, the frothing.

An indeterminate amount of time passes. Days, weeks, years. It is impossible to say. Eventually, my flight boards. I don't remember much of the flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth, being in an impenetrable haze. I have gathered that it involved much salivation and only a few were bitten. On a brighter note, the seat next to me remained unoccupied for the duration of the flight. I might try and remember what I did so I can again procure that same luxury the next time I fly.

After an indeterminable time period, we arrive at the Dallas airport. I exit the plane in the same fog I board it: my eyes bloodshot; my shirt wet with my own drool; my pants wet with... well I hope that's drool, too. But as I step off the jetway, there is an apparition in front of me. The clichéd angelic voices sing out as a bright beam of light illuminates a spot directly opposite the gate, casting all else into shadow. A bookstore. An actual, honest-to-goodness, genuine bookstore. The kind with books and everything. I check my watch. My next flight leaves in thirty minutes from the exact opposite side of the airport. I have not eaten all day. I must choose, but it is hardly a choice to make.

The chaos and carnage that ensued will go down in Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport history. To me, it is all a blur. The luggage flying everywhere; passengers knocked off their feet; collapsing bookshelves; and paper crunched underfoot. Eventually, I found my quarry, and snatching it off the shelf, I forced my way through the chaos to the check-out counter, shoving those poor souls misfortunate enough (why doesn't Firefox's spell checker know "misfortunate"?) to be in my way.

I throw a wad of cash at the clerk. I have to pay full cover price, nearly twice what Amazon is charging for it, and unable to use my Barnes and Noble gift card, which has been sitting in my wallet since some unknown birthday in ages past. I don't care. I would give him my credit card, my car, my wife, even my very soul to obtain the goods I so desired.

In the end, the savage beast within was tamed. The moral of the story? Be prepared. And aren't you glad I waited until book 7 was out before reading the rest of them? The horror that would have ensued should I have had to wait two years between parts would have been unlike any the world had ever known.

****************************

Yeah, yeah. I know. You people all had to wait two years between HBP and DH. What do I know? I'm just a whiner, aren't I? In my defense, I think what tortured my soul so wretchedly was not that I had to wait all of fifteen hours between finishing HBP and starting DH; it was that I didn't have to wait that time, but was only forced to because of my own careless planning. That and I was stuck in an airport for several hours with nothing to do. But that isn't as funny, now, is it?

The tale does have a happy ending, though. I finished Deathly Hallows late Sunday night, after spending ALL DAY Saturday and ALL DAY Sunday reading it (much to the chagrin of the Resident Murloc; I think she was just preparing to draft the divorce papers when I announced that I had finished). So the ban on discussion of plot details on this blog is officially lifted, but as the statute of limitations for spoiler warnings doesn't officially lift until a year after the book's release, all spoilers and discussions of plot details should be labeled as such, and give the reader fair warning.

Also, I am putting together a "The Quiz: Harry Potter Edition" and hope to post it within the next couple days, so if you have any fiendishly obscure HP trivia questions you think should be included, send them to me and I will consider blowing you off including them. And I'm not talking "what was Harry's shoe size?" obscure. I mean like "how many gold fillings did the second merchieftaness have?" obscure.